The personal blog of a recently married, 30 something, life long geek.

RPGaDay 2015 – Day 23: Perfect game for you

Short Answer: Not too complex or full of itself. Plenty of fun and adventure. Dinosaurs optional, but recommended.

Long Answer: I partly covered this answer back in Day 21. I don’t like it when games break the immersion to have you do complex mathematics to determine if you succeed or not. Likewise, I don’t mind games with depth, but there are times where the drama and mystery can outweigh everything else in the game. I’ve tried playing some of the White Wolf World of Darkness games, but they just don’t do it for me. Some might like these sorts of games, but they’re not for me.

As a counter-point, I also don’t enjoy games that are nothing but combat. Most RPGs have big timing differences between combat and non-combat scenes. Combat usually covers a short period of in-game time, but takes a long time to play through. Non-combat scenes can last minutes, or even hours in-game, but are much faster to play through. Combat is also a lot less organic in structure. You spend your time waiting for your turn in the initiative order, while trying to pay attention to what everyone else is doing and how much it’s going to disrupt your plans for the rest of the combat.

Basically, my idea of a perfect game is a bit like an action adventure movie. A bit of banter, a bit of action, and a few laughs here and there. Indiana Jones meets Star Wars meets Guardians of the Galaxy meets John Carter*.